CloseQuarters Combat Tournament
by Uena
Summary: Lire is known as the Grand Chase's Long Range specialist, only using her bow, arrows and bolts. Now, she decides to join a tournament using only close range weapons! Her teammates are in for a surprise. Set before Grand Chase Chaos.
1. Application

Okay, so I'm Hirume, a newbie writer. This is basically my first ever fanfic. So it's a given that I don't own Grand Chase or it's characters. I do, however, own some ideas and some OCs(Which might or might not appear. Probably as extras.)

Sad to say, I'm not that good at writing. If you have any tips on how I can improve, then I'll be glad if you can share them. Well, read on.

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><p>Ronan, the Royal Guard Master and the tournament official, and Lire had been arguing for the past hour now. Recently, the queen declared that a Close-Quarters Combat Tournament (Better known as CQCT) was to be held. Well-known warriors and aspiring martial artists were drawn far and wide throughout the continent and neighboring islands. It was to be held in honor of having the long-awaited peace they worked so hard to attain. But, for Lire, there is just one tiny-itty-bitty problem.<p>

"Lire, for the last time, You can't fight in the tournament!" The man in a uniform said.

The elven girl he was talking to frowned at that "Tell me, where in the rules says that I can't join?"

"Right here." Ronan pointed to a line on the posted plastered on the wall behind him.

"NO Projectiles are allowed to be used in the tournament. Arrows, Bullets, Missiles, Bolts, Bolts of magic, Notes of Destruction, Seeds of Doom, and Stuff Toys are prohibited from the arena.

Exemptions are: Bombs, Waves of [Spiritual]Energy, Icicles, Lazer Eye-beams, Mines, Shock Waves, and Thrown Main Weapons."

"So? Nothing says I can't participate." Ronan sighed and drooped his shoulders. He was tired of explaining to Lire why she can't be in the tournament.

"I TOLD you!" He near-scolded the blonde elf who didn't even flinch under the exerted effort of the Knight. "You can't use your Weapons here."

"Why can't I?"

The man spun and turned his back to Lire and began swearing incoherent words. After what seemed like 5 minutes of stomping, irritated grumblings, shaking fists, head-smashing, and crazy dancing, he faced Lire once again with a practiced, but shaky smile on his face. "Lire. Tell me, you do know that Arrows and Bolts are forbidden right?"

A nod.

"And your weapons use Arrows and Bolts to work right?"

Another nod, but this time a little worry was drawn on the flawless face of the archer.

"So that means you're practically _useless_ in battle without them right?"

No response. Just a menacing glare. The little worry on her features replaced by fierce anger on her green eyes.

"Which means you will get beat up into a pulp by the contestants. _That's_ what I mean by you can't join."

Silence.

Lire's aura glowered around her. Her golden bangs shadowed those sharp lovely eyes and the temperature around the two of them dropped. Ronan edged slowly away as he thought 'Oooh Boy. It's one thing for a girl to be mad. It's another for a girl as nice as Lire to be furious. Tell me why I agreed to be the Head of the Tournament Committee?'

Suddenly, she grinned. The smile isn't the one she usually used, it was one that said that this girl has a plan and you people better stay away if you know what's good for you. It was a smile used by sinister beings that knows what it wants and it knows how to get it.

She lifted her hand and touched Ronan's cheek. "Don't worry your pretty little head about it. I can handle myself." She patted it a few times and continued "Just sign me up, okay dear?"

Then, she walked out of the room, leaving a nervous knight on her wake. With a shaky voice, he called the poor sap who had to wait for over an hour just to apply into the tournament. "N-next!"

~H~I~R~U~M~E~

Elesis and Amy sat at a cafe in one of the busiest streets in Kanavan. Both girls are talking about the upcoming torunament and the unexpected participation of a certain green clad archer.

"I'm telling you Ams, Lire's joining." The red clad teenager said. Her milkshake untouched since it's arrival ten minutes ago at their table. The two decided to rest here after their daily partol, and the shop owner was gracious enough to reserve a booth for a member of Grand Chase. The team liked to stop by here and had been a place to for them to lay back or discuss some things.

Her pink haired pop idol companion ate spoonfuls of ice cream while listening to her. She occationally nodded or gave squeals of delight both from the treat and the topic they shared. The last one topic rated high in the 'unbelieaveable meter'.

"Lire? Joining? Oh please Els, saying Lire can fight in close range is like saying Jin will hit me." True, Jin would never hit Amy, even if he could, he can never get past his infatuation for the pink ball of energy enough to physically harm his source of affection.

"So you're not saying it's possible?" Elesis asked, finally taking a sip on the cold beverage. "I've been with Lire since the start of our quests. I've seen Lire use her bow to hit our enemies when she couldn't hit them with her arrows early on. Let me tell you, she hits them stratigically, in the joints, nerve areas... Don't you think she can wield some other weapon besides Bows and Crossbows?"

"Well, if she can, why haven't she used it yet? Many times she ran out of arrows in the most dangerous times. Remember the encounter with Gaia?"

The knight nodded, but reinforced her doubts. "Those times we had her back. Ryan was also staying back in battle because he 'didn't want to hurt Gaia'" Elesis placed sarcasim on the last statement. "Besides, while Ryan took care of the Spinemons and the Serpent Branches, Lire got to work on making a new set of arrows. So there really was no need to do that."

"What about the other instances? I mean that wasn't the only time she must have gotten into a situation like that." She twirled her spoon and mixed the ice treat on her cup.

"I told you, she could handle herself well in close range. It wasn't until Ryan, Ronan and Lass joined did she completely rely on her bows." Paused to drink her order and continued when she was half-way done. "Do you know the Harpy incident?"

The dancer shook her head.

"It happened when there was only Me, Arme and Lire on the team. The Harpies were creating havoc in the nearby beach and we were sent to take care of it.

Me and Arme were not used to fighting flying creatures, so it was mostly Lire and her arrows that did the trick. We took care of the stray goblins and orcs and she handled all of the Harpies. Ooh boy, there were a LOT of harpies.

By the time we got to the last part of the beach, Lire was out of arrows and we had to face the Harpy Queen. We were being thrown here and there by the gusts and gotten scratches all over our body because of the razor sharp feathers and we couldn't reach the damn beast.

Finally, Lire had enough. She ran up a lept up between two Palm trees and up to the back of the beast. Next thing we know, she was hitting the rear side of the wing with the ends of her bow. Then, the abomination came crashing down on the beach and we had the chance to take it down."

Amy nodded her head from side to side staring at the now empty cup in front of her, then a few seconds later looked up. "Did you say something Els?"

"Ugh!" Elesis grunted and slumped onto the table. Thankfully, both treats were finished.

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><p>Well, It's done.<p>

Tell me what you think of it. I'll get on with the tournament itself on the next chapters. If you're asking if I'm going to stick with their Canon personalities and skills, I might not. Lire certainly wouldn't. Jin and Ryan, they will. But otherwise I'm not sure.

See you all next time. We're going to the cafe.

Zell: Yeah. I want Drillmon Earth Shake.

Melph: Vanilla! Vanilla!

Bye!


	2. Preliminaries

**Zell**: Hey guys! We're the Rune Fair-

Not now Zell, you three make an appearance in the other stories, not here. Anyway, I wasn't supposed to update this, but I impulsively typed this one at 1:00 in the morning.

I hadn't planned on making writing this one anytime soon, since I'm focusing on a cross-over that I'm planning on posting here, and with a Quarter-term College schedule, this 16 year old just doesn't have enough time to write and revise the story.

The cross-over, I started mid-August, salvaged from ideas of other of my attempted cross-overs. It's a 6 story x-over and looks into the perspective of three main heroines.

Enough about that, here are important notes about this story:

Notes:

Lire is definitely OoC, so is Elesis, and also Ronan. I'm styling Lire's fighting style similar to Ranma's, meaning taunts, taunts, taunts. You can't blame me, her taunts in-game get quite irritating on her later jobs.

Elesis just knows Lire better, but I think she is OoC

On with the story!

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><p>Lire sat at her soft bed contemplating what she had done a little while ago during the sign-up.<p>

Sure, it didn't help that she and Ronan had been arguing over the tournament rules for more than an hour, but why would he stop her from participating just because she's the long-ranged specialist in the team?

Of course, that doesn't mean she had the right to lose her temper like that.

She was known to be the mediator and the motherly figure in their rag-tag group, to get into a squabble over a trivial thing isn't fitting for her image, and yet she let her normally saintly temper flare when Ronan, a bit unknowingly, hit a sore spot for her.

As the archer, she was known to stay back in battle, providing fire support, and overall not over excert herself in battles. People often judged her as the only one in the Grand Chase Team not in any real danger as she often stays back in the sidelines. Elesis would often reassure her that those people are jealous because they couldn't even get into the tracking team when it first got established when a bunch of girls, especially one that is an elf, was able to.

Elves were often discriminated because of their isolation from other races. Most would envy their longer life-span, others their sharp accuracy, while others would love to be able to think like a way an elf thinks. In reality, an elf is much like a human, and it frustrates her to no end that those people would discriminate her people when there is little difference between the two races.

She knows that they are more technologically adept, and their mercantile is legendary, they are also very artistic. Why would such a wonderful race envy an ancient, secluded race?

Besides that, elves in battle are often found working behind the lines, or sidelines, only giving support and 'not risking their lives.' One ignorant person said, upon their return, that she was the only elf on the team, and yet she used cowardly tactics in fighting the enemy, not facing them one on one in a 'true battle', skill V.S. skill in a 'proper melee duel.'

Ryan doesn't count. He is said to look like a dwarf.

So, to silent those senseless, yet irritating rumors, she decided to join the tournament. Ronan was just unlucky to be caught at a bad time.

Shaking herself from her thoughts, she grabbed the snake bow she had stashed in one of the cabinets in her room. She used the weapon only a few times in the early parts of her journey when it was only her, Elesis and Arme on the team. She used it to bring down the annoying harpie queen and has yet to use it since she used the dual crossbows.

At first, she was reluctant to rely solely on ranged attacks, being that the cross-bow only has limited range compared to the bow, but as the numbers of their enemies increased, she decided that the bow compensates the lack of close-range confrontation with the ability to fire off two and a half more shots than the bow, useful since back then there was a ton of Anmons.

She took the long, yellow bow rumored to be crafted from a desert snake, effectively naming it the "Snake bow." Lire knew better and knew the actual materials used for it, she then decided that it was time to craft another of this weapon to use for the tournament.

"Ronan better have submitted my application, otherwise his opponent will win by default."

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><p>"Are ya done yet?"<p>

"Just wait a minute Ryan. I just have to give this to the Knight Master to finalize everything."

Ryan and Ronan found themselves walking down the stone hallway leading to the Knight's chambers. In Ronan's hands are the several sheets submitted to him earlier by the interested fighters. The afternoon sunset told him that he had been working for almost the entire day and decided that he will have to talk to the other applicants tomorrow.

The orange haired druid inwardly snickered at the Guard Master as he thought of Lire's outburst. No one in her tribe would dare insult her fighting skills, she prided herself as being able to handle herself in any situation and bring about victory when all is said and done. Being mundane as he is, he doubted that the Knight knew what kind of horror he had signed himself up for. Good luck buddy.

_Oh, this is going to be fun._ He thought.

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><p>The crowd roared in excitement as five figures stepped into the arena.<p>

A week has passed since Lire had started on her new weapon, which she still had yet to finish. Today, she brought with her the old Snake Bow she had and allowed a devious smile to creep on her face when her four adversaries looked at her curiously.

"Hey girl, no bows allowed." a giant of a man bellowed from across the ring. Of-course, if he read the rules more properly, he would notice the tiny loop-hole that Lire was going to exploit today.

"What are you talking about?" she asked, faking a thoughtful pout as she placed her fingers on her chin. "I've never heard of that rule in this bout."

"What'd you mean 'didn't hear'? This is a melee competiton girl! Go play wiht your dolls or something. This isn't for girly elves to take."

"Such discrimination." Again, she smiled a mischivious smile. She looked at the official standing in the edge of the ring and told him "It clearly states that only the ammunition of bows and crossbows are not allowed, the weapon itself can be used. Sir, don't you think it's about time to start the match? It would seem the grumpy grandpa is tired of waiting for his arse to be kicked."

Elesis cringed in her seat a few meters away from the officials chair. She had just finished her match and the participants lucky enough to be included in the actual tournament would get a seat on the ringside to watch the remaining battles. She didn't like the way Lire addressed the man. Something tells her this won't end well.

"What! You distespectful maggot!" he turned to the offical, racing his flail and pointing at him with a finger "Start the match already!"

The offical did as he was told, and blew the whistle signaling the start of the match.

The man immediately charged at Lire, who stood in a relaxed stance. "I'll crush you!"

Lire held the bow like she would normally would, only this time, she held it on her right hand. She watched as the towering man swung his morning star in the air, ready to attack her if she ever got in it's range. True enough, as the man got close enough, the mace swung in a vertical arc towards her head.

The elf side-stepped his attack and nonchalantly shrugged when the mace hit the stone stage. "You know, it's dangerous to use real weapons here. The objective is to maim, not kill." she said as she thwapped the man's exposed elbow with the bow.

The man growled and proceeded to punch her, only for his fist to meet air as the blonde elf used her bow to redirect the strike above her head.

"So. Having fun yet?" She asked, twisting her bow counter-clockwise to direct the punch's momentum downwards, forcing him into the stone tiles as he lot his balance. "I think it's about time you got a cane."

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><p>Elesis for her part was praying silently to Zen to save the man's soul from the blonde devil that was threatening to overtake her friend.<p>

Lately, she had been able to read people, which was not hard regarding the fact that she herself is a talented actor. She placed on a facade of being an arrogant tomboy who loves battling when in reality she was just a simple noble from the house of Sieghart. Her instincts right now is telling her that Lire is not the best person to anger. Proven time and time again whenever they were ambushed by dark forces, it was like watching a vengeful goddess hiding in the skin of a normaly quiet girl.

She'd never been the most vocal in the group, but when Lire does speak up, it only means that it was time to get serious. Pity, the man would not notice that he was spelling his doom as she continued to insult and counter his every strike.

"She's looks like a little girl hitting an over-sized pig with a stick."

Elesis looked at her right where she found Ronan watching the fight with his arms crossed and a thoughtful expression on his face. She was about to respond to his comment when she felt an icy cold aura emittating from the stage.

She looked at the spot where Lire was fighting earlier. There, standing with one foot on top of the unconscious man was Lire smiling an eerie smile directed at Ronan.

"Good luck."

"What?" The Guard Master barely heard what the knight said, but he didn't worry about it. After all, it's just sweet o'l Lire.

But a wise man once said, "Anger thy enemy, anger thy ally, but thou shall not anger the sweet little girl, for a devil shall rise from the darkest pits of hell."

Wise words. Elesis wouldn't want to be in the receiving end of Lire's rage. Perhaps she still has a chance to back out...? Oh, wait. She forgot she made a bet with Arme that she's going to meet her in the finals. 1,000 credits is enough to buy her that Elsie plushie she always wanted.

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><p>"Well sir, it looks like you need more training." she said after she sighed. After shooting Ronan a <em>killer<em>smile, she turned her attention to the remaining three. Hmm, they look more of a challenge than the troll of a man.

"So," she announced to the three, stoping their attacks aimed at each other. "which one of you would want the privilage of fighting a Grand Chase Tracker?"

The three remaining contestants, a boy of 16 years, a woman in her 20s and a solder Lire regularly sees guarding the plaza all looked at her before the guard stepped forward. "It's an honor mistress Lire."

'_Couldn't you pick a less suggestive address rather than- Ooooh~ I just got an idea~_' she moved in the center of the ring and played with the bow she had by twirling it like a baton. '_Such a good idea only deserves to be used in the best situations. I think I'll use it after the preliminaries._'

She couldn't help keep the smirk out of her face as she entertained the idea of doing that on one of her teammates. It surely would change the image they had on her. It would also be fun doing it.

Well, can't think about that now, she still has to get past these three first. Should be interesting.

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><p>Done and done! Tell me what you guys think. I appreciate the first review by the way, but what I would really like is your comments on my writing style or things like that. Thanks anyways.<p>

Well, see you next time.

Stay Magical.


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